Simon Just Didn`t Play Tv`s Game

March 10, 1988|By Steve Daley.

You can gaze at the pie charts from Pensacola and read the press accounts from Arkansas and listen to the political scientists on PBS and arrive at the conclusion that this is, indeed, a curious way to choose a president.

Having come to that conclusion, it is incumbent upon those gentlemen pursuing Ronald Reagan`s home address to understand that while the process may be as perverse as baseball`s designated-hitter rule or the television success of Geraldo Rivera, the machinery is set in place.

You`ve got television advertising to bankroll and televised debates to manipulate. The wise guys call it ``paid media`` and ``free media.``

You`ve got a finite amount of time to campaign, which means you have to articulate a clear message; yes, even if you don`t believe it. And you have the reality that for every political action there is a media reaction.

Do better than the pollsters and the savants expect you to do, a la Pat Robertson in Iowa, and the expectation-gaugers will find an ``invisible army`` for you. No matter that the ``invisible army`` will go over the hill in New Hampshire and South Carolina, largely because the army was dreamed up by the news media.

Stumble where you ought to strut, however, and the next sound you hear will be your throat being cut on ``This Week with David Brinkley.``

Whatever happens next week in this state`s primaries, it`s evident that U.S. Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois either didn`t understand the rules or chose not to play by them. The answer to that riddle depends on where your question is targeted.

Call it nobility or call it the massacre of the innocents. But Paul Simon`s Democratic presidential campaign is as dead as a beached smelt.

Maybe it was doomed from the top, when the reluctant Simon waited for U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas to pass up a campaign try. Maybe there wasn`t ever enough money, though lack of funds didn`t turn back Jesse Jackson in places such as Iowa, Vermont and Minnesota.

Maybe it was the incessant invocation of Hubert Humphrey`s name and the droning use of terms such as ``leadership that cares`` to describe ephemeral policy positions. Maybe it was responding to every inquiry with a stultifying institutional retort. If Simon said it once, he said something like this a thousand times: ``In 1976 I cosponsored enabling legislation in the Congress that . . . .``

If you cut to the chase, the reality is this: A black preacher with a decidedly left-of-center message and the sitting governor of one of the most liberal states in the republic are setting the pace in the Democratic Party right now.

Apparently there is no room for Paul Simon in this equation. His partisans may puff out their chests over the consistency of their man`s political posture, but the message from the voters so far is that a candidate such as Paul Simon ought to be winning when all he`s doing is losing.

Certain moments in the campaign are indicative of Simon`s problem. Before the Iowa caucuses, Simon took part in what is called the ``farm debate.`` In January seven Democratic aspirants were confronted not by reporters but by representatives of agricultural-interest groups.

The farm debate is a significant political event in Iowa. In the past, would-be nominees such as U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston of California have seen their White House dreams collapse in this forum under the weight of misguided utterances.

This time around, Simon was seated next to his principal Midwestern rival, U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, a man who had supported Jimmy Carter`s 1980 grain embargo against the Soviet Union, an embargo that many Iowa farmers believe hurt them far more than it hurt the Soviets. Simon did spar with Gephardt on the latter`s support of Reagan`s controversial 1981 tax cut but left it to others to confront Gephardt on his backing of the grain embargo and his vote against raising the minimum wage.

Later, Simon`s media consultant, David Axelrod, was asked about this sit- on-your-hands debating style. Axelrod allowed as how Simon did not like confrontation, and the aide said the senator spurned all suggestions that he be more aggressive in these situations.

Credit Simon for being faithful to his standards, if you will. And the argument here is not that a presidential campaign turned on one incident or another along the trail.

But it can be argued that the Democrats don`t need another candidate who does not seem to grasp the fast-paced, video-generated realities of playing the game, circa 1988. A bow tie and a hearty handshake and a sterling record in Congress won`t cut it. Telling people, time and again, that you aren`t a

``packaged`` candidate when what you are is an unprepared candidate will exact a price.

The saddest element in Simon`s effort is that, with perfect hindsight, you can see how it just might have been his year.